Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/475

 phia, the capital of Pennsylvania, speedily grew in size and importance. Its name is associated with some of the most distinguished events in the history of the United States. It was there that the delegates of the various colonies assembled in the year 1774, when they declared against the right of the mother country to tax the colonies; and it was also there that the famous declaration of independence was proclaimed in 1776. On the conclusion of the war of independence, Penn's descendants sold their right of proprietorship over Pennsylvania to the American government for £130,000. Philadelphia continued to be the seat of the federal government till the year 1800. In the present day it is a large and populous city, celebrated for the number of its foundations and benevolent institutions, all less or more originating in the philanthropic principles early introduced into Pennsylvania.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

This celebrated individual, the youngest but two of a family of seventeen children, was born at Boston, in Massachusetts, on the 17th of January, 1706. His father was at first a dyer, and afterwards a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler, and had quitted England in order to escape the prosecution of the non-conformists, under Charles II. His son Benjamin was sent to a grammar-school at eight years of age, with a view of being educated for the church; but this design was soon abandoned, and the subject of our memoir, after having made a slight progress in writing and arithmetic, returned home, and assisted at his father's trade. This employment was very irksome to Franklin, whose inclinations had become directed to a sea-faring life; and it was at length agreed that he should be apprenticed to his cousin who was a cutler. An obstacle to this, however, arose in the amount of premium required, and he was eventually bound, in his twelfth year, to his brother James, a printer.

He soon made great progress in this business, and an acquaintance formed with several booksellers' apprentices, enabled him to indulge his love of reading, by borrowing books, which they had facilities to obtain. 'It has often happened to me,' he says, in a memoir of the early part of his life, 'to pass the greater part of the night in reading by my bed-side, when the book had been lent to me in the evening, and was to be returned the next morning, lest it might be missed or wanted.' This disposition being noticed by a Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a large collection of books, he offered the use of them to Franklin, who soon became an author, and composed several little pieces in verse. Two of these, a ballad, called 'The Lighthouse Tragedy,' and a song on the noted pirate, Blackbeard, were, by his brother's directions, printed: but the most unpoetic part of the story remains to be told—their author was despatched about the town to sell them. Franklin says, 'the first had a prodigious run, because the event was recent, and had made a great noise;' but 'they were wretched verses in point of style—mere blindman's ditties.' His father seems to have been of the same opinion, for he ridiculed the productions; 'and thus,' says their author, 'my exultation was checked, and I escaped the misfortune of being a very miserable poet.' At this period he formed an acquaintance with a young man of the name of Collins, who was also a great lover of books. They were frequently together, and were both fond of disputation, which